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Martin Altman |
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"Preparing for Gaia:
Getting Ready for the Biggest Revolution in Galactic Astronomy" |
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The ESA-Gaia mission will without doubt revolutionize Galactic astronomy and thus our understanding of the structure, formation and evolution of our Milky Way and of galaxies in general. Gaia will provide proper motions and parallaxes at a precision level of 10-100 micro arcseconds for approximately 1 billion stars (1% of the MW stellar inventory) as well as radial velocities, and basic abundances of brighter subsamples. This impressive database, especially when supplemented by suitable ground based data will allow us to probe deep into the components of the Galaxy and dissect even complex structures such as the halo. Furthermore the dynamics of the complete local group can be studied in unprecedented detail. Such an highly ambitious undertaking will require enormous efforts in its preparation. I will present the Gaia mission and it's main objectives, as well as the efforts which need to be undertaken in the preparation and during the operational phase of Gaia. In this context, I will give an overview of the Ground Based Optical Tracking campaign, which will measure the satellite's position and motion to great precision, a necessary measure to ensure the data quality aimed at by Gaia. Finally I will also comment on the ground based needs for follow up observing. |